Gary Oldman Remembers the Quiet Thing Alan Rickman Did on the “Harry Potter” Set Every Day
Severus Snape spent eight films making it clear he’d rather be anywhere than surrounded by children. Alan Rickman, it turns out, spent those same eight films doing the exact opposite.
Speaking at the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday during a retrospective presentation on his career, Gary Oldman — Sirius Black across four Harry Potter films — turned to his late co-star and the habit he kept up on set. Oldman described Rickman as the cheerleader of the whole production, someone genuinely committed to being there rather than just turning up for the paycheque.
What stayed with him was what Rickman did with his lunch breaks. Oldman recalled that Rickman brought children onto the set more or less every day: kids from a school, kids from a hospital, friends and their children. He’d walk them around the sets himself, and the rest of the cast would come and meet them. Oldman called it the most extraordinary thing, and put it down to Rickman understanding exactly how much being there would mean to them. He said he’d never forget it. “He was such a darling like that,” Oldman finished.
Rickman died in 2016 at 69, following pancreatic cancer, and the reflection came as the tenth anniversary of his death approached. The stories that have surfaced since have tended to run in the same direction. Tom Felton has told a similar version, describing how Rickman would quietly bring terminally ill children and their families to the studio, and how he insisted children didn’t want to meet actors — they wanted to meet the characters.
Twenty-five years on from the first film, that’s the part of the Leavesden story that keeps getting better with retelling.
Did you have a favourite Snape moment across the eight films? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to follow along for more Harry Potter news.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
